Preface

 

This book is a fictionalized story of the sadistic inhumanity of the Turks against the heroic Greek women guerrillas and the English and French female spies who fell into their hands.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

It was a wind-swept, stormy day in early January in the year 1915, in the Turkish port of Gelibolu, near the neck of the Gallipoli Peninsula which extends some sixty miles to the southwest between the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles. In the seaport's best hotel, the Karambula, Colonel Ahmet Ceydet was enjoying himself with his chiefs of staff, Captain Celal Druyla and First Lieutenant Hostein Konya. The inseparable trio had gone through military academy together, and were nearly of the same age, the colonel being thirty-two to his companions' twenty-eight and thirty respectively. Valour in the campaign against the Armenians three years earlier had gained Ahmet Ceydet his colonelcy. First Lieutenant Hostein Konya might well have had his captain's bars had it not been for an unfortunate political blunder six months previously, when he had put down a skirmish of Armenian guerrillas and, after putting the men to the sword, had the women raped and then tortured. One of these women had been a captive of the Armenians, herself a loyal Turkish wife to a spy whose counsel was valuable to the Turkish War Ministry. And since the first lieutenant himself had enjoyed the carnal pleasures of this luckless female, he had been demoted from a captaincy won in the field only two days earlier, and he would most likely end his military career with no higher rank than he now had.

At the moment, however, the three officers had little concern for the militaristic future. Colonel Ahmet Ceydet had been alerted to hold his force near the town because rumours had come to the Turkish high command that the Allies might be planning a surprise attack. It was not yet known where they would strike, but it was as well to be ready.

As gusts of wind rattled the shutters and the chairs beside the stone-topped tables which had been abandoned outside, the colonel, a gaunt-faced, wiry man with a waxed, curling moustache and cold cruel eyes, raised his glass of good red Grecian wine. "To the end of this stupid war," he growled, "so that we may go back to the glorious days of hunting down those Armenian and Bulgar pigs and hear them squeal at the end of our lances!"

"May it be so written in the Koran," Captain Celal Druyla heartily agreed, clinking his glass against his senior officer's. "And to the many gazelles of those two wretched races who will try to outrun our hardy soldiers - may the fleetest and the fairest of them be reserved for the three of us, good friend!"

"I will drink to that," First Lieutenant Hostein Konya sighed, remembering his own tactical blunder. "Only this time, I may ask to see more credentials."

"Bah," the colonel laughed as he gulped down his wine, then lit a long Albanian cigarette, "the best credentials are when the woman is naked and under the bastinado. She will soon tell you what race she belongs to and whether she is a spy."

"That's true enough. But how by the thousand private hells of Shitan was I to know that the big-tittied, wailing bitch I took into that room near the church was the wife of one of our own spies?" The lieutenant raised his eyes to the ceiling self-pityingly.

"Courage, comrade. We won't be stationed here forever, you know. Once this threat of an attack - which I personally don't think is going to happen - becomes just idle talk, we'll go back after the Armenians. There are enough traitors near our headquarters still to chase down and to question," the colonel grinned as he poured himself another glass of wine.

There was a knock at the door of the little private dining room which the three officers had commandeered. Colonel Ahmet Ceydat frowned and called out, "Enter!"

A burly, bearded Turkish sergeant-major appeared, smartly saluting, standing stiff at attention. "Well, Kemal? What's so important that you have to interfere with out dinner?"

"Begging the Colonel's pardon, two of my men have just found some woman skulking around. She had a room at this hotel and they found her on another floor, looking into a linen closet."

"Maybe the bitch had the curse of the moon upon her and ran out of towels," First Lieutenant Konya bawdily suggested.

"No, Lieutenant," the sargeant-major respectfully corrected. "She's an Englishwoman."

"What the devil! Here, in this hotel?" Colonel Ceydat abruptly rose, knocking over his wine glass.

"My men of course asked her for her papers, Colonel, and I myself have just questioned the manager of this flea-bitten hole. He says that she is married to a Turk - or was, since she is now a widow. They lived in Gelibolu before the war, but she claims her house was taken by the government for taxes. She hasn't too much money, and the owner of this hovel has let her stay on out of charity. That's her story, Colonel."

"Well, let's see this paragon, then. An Englishwoman married to a Turk - there's a strange mating in bed. I've heard that Englishwomen are cold," Captain Druyla spoke as he lit a cigar.

"Shall I bring her in here, Colonel?"

"Of course, you idiot! And bring my dogwhip too. If the bitch isn't what she seems, we'll have some sport, eh, comrades?" Colonel Ahmet Ceydat glanced at his two subalterns, who eagerly nodded.